(i) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to cooking apparatus, and specifically to cooking apparatus designed for deep frying of poultry and other food items and for steaming or boiling food items.
(ii) Description of the Related Art
Typical deep frying food cooking apparatus (deep fryers) include a container in which oil is heated and a basket or food support on which food items are placed and then lowered into the heated oil in the container to be cooked. Prior art fryers include large fryers for cooking large items such as turkeys, which often have their own support stand and heat source, and smaller fryers for cooking smaller items that can be used on a kitchen stove top or countertop. When deep frying large food items, such as turkeys or other poultry items, or smaller items such as french fries, vegetables or fish, the user is exposed to the danger of large amounts of oil at very high temperatures, typically 350.degree. F. or more. When inserting frozen food items or items that contain moisture into deep fryers containing hot oil, the high temperature oil causes the moisture to flash off the food items and thereby creates bubbling and turbulence within the hot oil which causes the hot oil to spatter, potentially burning the user of the fryer.
Typical prior art deep fryers include baskets with a handle that extends outward from the periphery of the basket so that a user may insert the basket into and remove the basket from the deep fryer with minimal exposure to the dangers of the spattering hot oil. The large prior art turkey or poultry fryers typically utilize a flat plate like food support which do not have the same outwardly extending handle of smaller fryers. Because of the large size of turkeys and poultry items and their associated weight, such a handle would not always provide a secure grip on the food support when inserting or removing the food support into or out of the hot oil. Therefore, the large prior art turkey and poultry fryer food supports typically have a center post that extends upwardly from the center of the food support to a top end of the post that is adapted to be connected to a handle of some type for inserting and removing the food support into and out of the hot oil. Typically, the center post also serves as a skewer upon which the turkey or poultry items are inserted so as to hold the turkey and poultry items in a centered orientation during the cooking process. These handle assemblies of prior art turkey and poultry fryers expose the user to the dangers of the spattering hot oil. Specifically, because the food supports are inserted and removed from the hot oil container by a handle that attaches to the center post of the food support, the user's hand(s) and arm(s) are exposed to the spattering hot oil when inserting the food into and when removing the food from the deep fryer. Therefore, these prior art fryers require the user to wear protective clothing such as long sleeve shirts and gloves and/or gloves with extended gauntlets to avoid the possibility of being burned by the hot oil.
Typical food steaming or boiling apparatus (food steamers) include a container for heating and boiling water and a basket for supporting food items to be boiled or steamed in the container. The basket typically has a handle that extends across the top of the basket and, like the prior art turkey fryers, exposes the user to hot steam or boiling water when inserting or removing the basket from the container.
When steaming food or frying turkeys, it is desirable, for proper cooking, to keep the food off of the bottom surface of the container. To accomplish this, prior art turkey and poultry fryers typically utilize a food support that has legs extending downwardly from the bottom of the food support. The legs serve to position the food support and the turkey in a spaced relation from the bottom of the fryer container within which the turkey and the food support are placed. Likewise, prior art food steamers also often provide a basket that has legs extending downwardly from the bottom of the basket. The disadvantage of having legs extending downwardly from the bottom of the food support/basket is that the user may, when inserting or removing the food support/basket from the fryer/steamer, mistakenly believe that the entire food support/basket has cleared the upper most part of the container, when in fact, a leg is still extending into the container or extending outside of the container. This exposes the user to the danger that a leg of the food support may catch on a lip or side wall of the container and cause the food support/basket to tip and possibly spilling its food contents, or worse knock over the container and expose the user to the dangers of the spilled hot liquid of the container.
Prior art fryers and food steamers do not provide a means of draining the liquid contents from the container. To remove the liquid contents from the container, :typical prior art fryers and food steamers require the user to pour the liquid contents of the container out of the top of the container, much like pouring water from a bucket. This method of removing the liquid contents of the container exposes the user to the dangers of spilling the contents and, if still hot, burning anyone who comes in contact with the spilled liquid.